


Opportunity Knocks

by fleurlb



Category: Friday Night Lights
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-20
Updated: 2016-06-20
Packaged: 2018-07-16 06:40:37
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,240
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7256518
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fleurlb/pseuds/fleurlb
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tyra knew that she was never going to undervalue her skills, whatever they might be. And she knew that her biggest skill had always been being able to spot an opportunity.</p><p>A look at what happened to Tyra after she left Dillon.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Opportunity Knocks

**Author's Note:**

  * For [SegaBarrett](https://archiveofourown.org/users/SegaBarrett/gifts).



> Thank you so much for the opportunity to write about one of the sharpest and smartest characters in Dillon. I know very little about many things, so please hand-wave as necessary. Any mistakes are my own.

Tyra stood with her arms crossed, impatient and uncomfortable. The lights were making her sweat, but the wind machine was chilling her to the point of goose bumps. If Henri didn't get the shot soon, she was going to walk.

Or at least that's what she told herself as the stylist flitted around, applying lipgloss and tidying stray curls. Just a few more photos, and she'd be done. She'd long ago learned that she could do anything for a short amount of time, if the pay day was good enough. She remembered how Mindy used to return from the Landing Strip, coated with an invisible sheen of exhaustion, and sigh “Another day, another dollar.”

Even back then, Tyra knew that she was never going to undervalue her skills, whatever they might be. And she knew that her biggest skill had always been being able to spot an opportunity.

\---//---  
University of Texas, Austin, September of freshman year

Tyra's roommate was a curious creature – a vegan hippie who wore Birkenstocks, indigenous prints, and a perpetual perfume of marijuana. Her name was Autumn, and she had a boyfriend, Quinn, whose hair hung over his eyes, which Tyra were pretty sure were closed most of the time. 

It took a few months for Tyra to warm up to them, but she quickly realized that Autumn reminded her a bit of Julie, if Julie had been raised by weed-growing anarchists instead of wholesome Coach and Mrs. T. 

Tyra barely had time to socialize because she was hustling flat out to keep up with her classes while working 30 hours a week as a waitress at a cool Tex-Mex place on Sixth Street. The tips were hit or miss, and she was sick of having her ass grabbed. She remembered the homecoming party she'd thrown with Billy Riggins and decided to set her sights on something similar. She enlisted Autumn and Quinn, who blew her mind by putting down a $2,000 cash deposit on a venue.

“You know I have to ask,” she said when they were back in Autumn's mint-green Jetta. 

Quinn reached under the seat and pulled out a shoebox, which he passed back to Tyra. She peeled the lid off, and it was filled with stacks of organized but crinkled bills, nearly all twenties. 

“I've got three more like it. Hidden in various places.”

“You sell weed?” It was a question, which Tyra realized made her sound like she'd just landed from Mars.

“Yeah. And figuring out what to do with the money is one of the hardest things. I can't take it to the bank.”

“Don't worry, babe, someday, soon, pot's going to be legal and then you can have a bank account just like everyone else.” Autumn patted Quinn's arm, like she was consoling a child who'd lost a goldfish.

“Well, we'll see what happens in Colorado. They're voting on it soon.”

As Tyra stared at the money, she remembered a recent lecture in her Law of Business class, about how federal laws can take precedence over state laws because of interstate commerce concerns. She thought about how there was no way the federal government was going to let a bunch of pot growers in Colorado use the federal banking system.

And so idea for the Bank of Weed was born. Tyra turned the idea over and over in her head for weeks, even as she quit her job at the Tex-Mex place to plan and throw parties full-time. She was growing a nice little nest egg, and she just knew that the Bank of Weed was the way to go. Of course it couldn't be a real bank, no way she could create a physical bank-like entity, because she'd face the same regulatory hurdles as a real bank along with all the overhead and practical hassle. 

It needed to be a virtual bank. She knew from one of her many commerce classes that actual physical money was well on its way to becoming an antique. Billions of dollars changed hands every day as nothing more than bits and bytes sent over wires and through the air. So her bank could be an app that let buy-users have accounts that they could transfer real money into to buy weed. Then then seller-users could use that money to pay their own bills and even to pay taxes. And her company would make money by charging a small percentage on transactions and by charging the growers for financial services. It could work, but she was going to need a geek.

And she knew just where to find one. 

\---//---

After the photoshoot, Tyra changed into her own clothes but did not change her her hair or makeup. It was nice to feel a little glamorous for once.They had a new branch of the Bank of Weed coming online in Oregon, and she'd been working 80-hour weeks for the last month. She knew she'd need another trip to Oregon soon to finalize the data center contract. She smiled as she thought about how flying business class had gone from a seemingly unachievable pipe dream to a bimonthly hassle. 

Tyra opened the door to her company's loft offices and headed for her office. She noticed the door to the CTO's office was open, so she stuck her head in. 

“I'm back. We still need to meet today to finalize the Portland launch.”

“Oooh-la-la, is that really you, Tyra? I can't tell under the three inches of makeup.” Landry grinned at her.

“Don't you start.” She raised a warning finger, but her voice was playful. After all these years, she and Landry still made a great team, even if they'd never made a great couple.

“I know, I know. It's a tough job to the be the public face of the Bank of Weed.” 

“And I know that you'd say that being up to your eyeballs in server-side APIs is an even tougher job, but at least none of your geeks ever make you feel like a piece of meat.”

“Well, Kavita did grab my ass once, but it was an honest mistake. I was standing too close to the door and she wasn't wearing her glasses.”

“They made me stand in front of a lot of pot plants that had fake money taped to them.” Tyra sighed and leaned against the door frame.

“Our moms are going to be so proud.” Landry turned back to his computer, his polite signal that the conversation was over because he had code to wrangle. Tyra went into her office and shut the door.

\---//---

Tyra spent six months writing a business plan and figuring out as much as she could. She had tunnel vision when it came to the idea, even standing up Landry and blowing off just about all the friends she'd sort of made in college. She planned parties with Quinn, went to classes, and then spent every spare minute on her new venture.

When she had all the details nailed down, she called Landry, who sounded less than pleased to hear from her and Tyra nearly regretted her decision to ignore him, but she reminded herself of Tim Riggins' slogan, No Regrets, and asked Landry for just twenty minutes of his time.

She met him at a coffee shop in Austin that had a private room, which she booked. When he came in, she was dressed for a business meeting, had a business plan and a fresh cup of coffee at an empty place at the table. She motioned for him to sit down.

“I don't really know what this is all about. Are you going to try to sell me a time share in Aspen or something?” 

Tyra smiled and tried to project more confidence than she actually felt. “Better. I'm going to try to sell you on a multi-billion dollar business. I have the idea and the business sense, but I need a geek for implementation.”

Landry pushed his chair away from the table. “I don't want to be your geek. You can't just keep using me for your dirty work.”

“That was kind of a low blow,” said Trya, taking a deep breath as she tried not to lose her cool.

“Yeah, maybe it was,” conceded Landry. “But you kind of deserved it.”

“Maybe I did. But all that stops now. Because I'm serious, Landry, I'm not just coming to you with pie in the sky here. I have an actual, concrete plan. Let me give you my pitch.”

Landry nodded, and Tyra started her pitch, just like she'd practiced it in the mirror so many times over the last few weeks. Landry was listening, flipping to the pages that she referenced, and she could nearly see the gears turning in his head. When she finished, she asked him what he thought, and he pulled out his laptop. 

She waited for several long minutes before she sighed. “Landry, I asked you what you thought, and now you're just being rude. I thought we'd agreed to put the past behind us.”

Landry looked up, his cheeks reddening. “I'm sorry, I'm practically institutionalized. At Rice, it's not rude at all to jump right into a project.”

“Jump right into a project?” echoed Tyra, a grin slowing spreading across her face.

“That's right, Tyra, you got yourself a geek, although I think I prefer the term CTO.”

“Tomayto, tomahto,” replied Tyra, sitting down and opening her own laptop. 

\---//---

Tyra came into work a couple of weeks later and found stacks of Rolling Stones magazines on her desk. It was a little disconcerting to have multiple little Tyras, displaying ample cleavage, looking up at her from in front of a weird hybrid of a pot plant and money tree. Landry had left an open, annotated copy on her chair, so she wouldn't miss it. She checked every sticky note he'd left in the magazine, but they were all compliments.

“Hey, I'm a little bummed that I make it into Rolling Stone as your work husband and tech guy and not as a rock star with Crucifictorious,” said Landry when she stopped in his office later that afternoon.

“Life never quite turns out the way you think it will.”

“Well, I suppose it would be boring if it did. You headed out?”

Tyra held up a few copies of the magazine. “My mom and Mindy want them, but can't be bothered to go to Midland to get them.”

“I'm sure they just want to see you.” 

“Yeah, that too. I'll be back tomorrow in time for the stakeholder meeting.”

“As long as they're not holding actual stakes, we'll be fine,” said Landry, an old joke that was never that funny to begin with. Tyra waved it away and walked down the corridor, her own patented move for when she was done with a conversation. 

It took her a couple of hours to drive to Dillon, and she headed right for Mindy's house. Both Billy's truck and Mindy's minivan were gone, which caused Tyra to curse silently in her head. She hoped the trip wouldn't be a waste of time. 

But just standing on the porch, listening to the din of shouting boys, set Tyra's mind at ease. Someone had to be home, but she didn't expect that someone to be a bleary-eyed Tim Riggins, holding Mindy's long-awaited daughter, a 4-month old named Daisy.

“Tim Riggins, you are literally the last person I expected to see holding a baby,” she blurted, even though the truth was that both he and the baby looked way more comfortable than she had ever looked with a baby. If business tended to be a choice between cheap, fast, and good, Tyra often felt that life was a choice between business, husband, and family. Only in her case, she'd only gotten to pick one. 

“I help out sometimes. Billy and Tyra both had to go into the school to talk about Stevie. He's apparently bored and acting out. Guess he takes after his aunt.”

Tyra puffed out an impatient breath and rolled her eyes. “Please, Mindy did more than her fair share of getting into trouble, and Billy wasn't exactly a saint.”

“I said he was bored, not stupid. They think the problem is he's actually too smart.” Tim stepped back and motioned for her to come into the house. As she did, her nephews and a couple of kids she'd never seen before came stampeding through the house like a herd of wildebeest across the Serengeti. One paused to point at her.

“I know you! You're famous,” said the boy.

Tyra shook her head, but one of the twins grabbed a copy of Rolling Stone off the coffee table.

“Oh, I didn't think Mindy would go all the way to Midland for that. I brought some with me.”

The boys ran out as Tim answered. “Of course Mins did. She's really proud of you... we all are.”

“Don't you go getting soft on me now, Riggins,” said Tyra as she sunk onto the sofa. “Go get me a beer and we'll have a nice catch up before Billy and Mindy get home.”

Tim did as she asked, but not before unloading baby Daisy into Tyra's awkward arms. Tyra did her best to relax and appreciate the irony of life ending up a million miles from how she expected while still managing to bring her right back to Dillon, time and again.

/fin


End file.
